The evolution of the computer user interactive work environment has changed from paper tape or punch cards of early years to command line based user work environment on a native system in 1970's , and to window & mouse click based user work environment on a native system in the middle of the 1980's .
There are network based user work environment since 1980's and 1990's such as Microsoft's terminal service, the telnet of Unix & Linux system etc. These types of software let users to access and operate the target system remotely from the user's local system. There are network management software, which mostly focus on monitoring the targeted systems' network activities. In addition, all of the software mentioned has limited mobility and capability because they are all required to install specialized software on the user's remote system. Therefore, these types of software are not easy to be ported and further limit the user's ability to remotely work from various kind systems or devices.
There are web-based application software that allow users to access web applications on a web server from a web browser on a user's local system or device. However, these types of software are not designed for manage resource on web server and not designed for creating a web based computer user work environment. There are web-based software that allow people to manage system remotely. However, they also do not create a web-based computer user work environment, instead, simply dump the existing computer user work environment of a particular system to a web browser on a remote system. Also, this type of software has limited network capability.
A new web-based computer user work environment (WCUWE) has been disclosed in the parent applications of the “Concurrent web based multi-task support for control management system”, and the “IP based distributed virtual SAN” in the name of the same inventor. The present invention will continue to discuss how the WCUWE of the CCDSVM can achieve and realize a flexible working environment for the users of the CCDSVM by deploying the MLIL . With the MLIL, the WCUWE can provide users much efficiency to access and operate the provisioned systems of the CCDSVM from any web browser on the user's local system or electronic device. Due to the capability of expanding the CCDSVM crossing Intranet and Internet and its strong security control, the WCUWE can meet the increased demanding for providing a more secure, mobilized, flexible and cost saving computational solution.
To fully understand the present invention, one might also need to know the various terminologies from technology perspective, which are described hereafter.
The CCDSVM is an abbreviation for a central controlled distributed scalable virtual machine. The CCDSVM allows a control management station to control groups of systems and provide distributed services to one or more client systems in Intranet and Internet as well as in LAN environment. The software components of the CCDSVM form a virtual operating environment of a virtual operating system.
Every computer system provides each end user a computer user work environment (CUWE), which usually runs on the top of a generic computer operating system kernel. The CUWE allows privileged user to setup authentication profile for different users, to configure system resources from storage, network, file system, file folders structure, files and all other available resources on the computer system, to monitor system activities, to access applications, and to manage data files such as moving data from one folder to another folder or moving data from one system to another system etc. without limits. Specially, the CUWE provides each of one or multiple concurrent users having multi-task capability. Therefore, each user is capable of performing multiple tasks described above concurrently after a successful log on to a computer system.
The web-based computer user work environment (WCUWE) of the present invention runs on the top of generic operating system for a single computer or for multiple computers of a virtual server. The WCUWE allows each users working on one or multiple computer systems through a conventional web-browser, which either located remotely on a system or device such as laptop, PDA, desktop etc. or located locally on said one or more computer systems. With this web-based computer user work environment, the entire CCDSVM can be operated as a single machine.
The resources configured on a computer system or electronic device include CPU, memory, storage device, network device, monitor or other display devices, keyboard, mouse, photo or video record devices, wireless device, user authentication profiles, and various form of deposited data on storage etc. without limits. The deposited data on storage could be file system structure, file-folders, data files, formed raw data etc. The data file can be in various format such as plain text, binary data, PDF, MPEG or jpeg, or various image data, MS power point or Word documentation etc. The mentioned data is for illustrating only and they shall not be limited to these mentioned above. The storage could also be in any media format such as hard disk drive, magnetic tape drive, various forms of memory devices, or others suitable media without limits. In addition, in the rest of discussion the resources of the computer system or devices will be referred to the resources mentioned above.
The web browser can interpret the standard structured formatted information and display them via web pages such that people can view, manipulate, and interact with the displayed information. The standard formatted information are imposed and encoded by using the programming language such as HTML (hypertext markup language), XHTML, DHTML, XML, or any other suitable languages, whichever can best describe the structured information. In the real life, the mentioned languages (HTML, XML, . . . ) themselves are often referred as standard format for web communication. Therefore, in this invention, it is not necessary to have a clear boundary between these two different entities. In other words, they are often be used interchangeably in this invention without further mention the differences.
Multi-layered item list (MLIL) is a logically organized information list with a certain order, where each entry contains an item and each items may contain another layer of list of items, where each items may represent a physical resources or information of the computer systems or other devices. For example, the information of files and file-folders of a file system on a modern computer system is typically organized as multi-layers item list and can be viewed, displayed & operated on a modern UI window of a native computer system with supporting from modern computer operating system. Further, each item (node) on the list may represent a file-folder or file.
The information of systems or devices on the network, the information of hardware components on a systems such as disks, network cards, memory etc, and the information of multiple users' accounts on a system also can be organized into multiple layers of item list for displaying, viewing, and operating. The supporting of the MLIL in the WCUWE has made the system resources and information much easy to be displayed, viewed, and operated from a browser. The MLIL may contain at least one item (node) and as many as multiple hundreds items (nodes).
The system, which mentioned in present invention, can be a desktop, laptop, various types of servers, PDA, or cell phone or other devices with communication ability. The systems mentioned here are just for illustrating and they shall not be limited in the present invention.
The OS (operating system) mentioned in this invention can be any suitable operating system such as Windows, Linux, various Unix, real-time operating system and so forth without limits. The present invention shall be independent of the OS platform.
The programming languages, which are used for implementing all software modules mentioned in this invention, could be any suitable languages or a combination of the suitable languages such as C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic, C sharp, HTML, XML, DHTML, XHTML, and others without limits.
The communication protocols used in the CCDSVM could be various kinds that are appropriate for transmitting required data over communication links. The communication protocols could be IP-based protocols or non-IP-based. The IP based protocols are built on the top of IP protocols and could be standard based, such as TCP, UDP, ICMP, and other protocols, and also can be non-standard proprietary protocols. The non-IP based protocols can be ISO 8473, ISO 8208, or serial communication, or data link layer protocols like LLC 802.2, or HDLC, or any proprietary protocols bellow the IP protocol level. The protocols mentioned above are just for illustration purpose and shall not impose any limitations on the present invention.
The communication protocols for web computing could be HTTP, SOAP, WAP, or others without limitations.
The web browser mentioned in this invention can be an existing commercial software such as Microsoft IE or Netscape, or Firefox, or Mozillar, or any other commercial or proprietary software. The web browser must be able to handle web protocols such as HTTP, SAOP, WAP or others and be able to interpret the standard structured formatted information, and further let user to view the web contents transmitted over the web using protocol such as HTTP.
The web server software mentioned in this invention could be a commercial software from any vendors such as Apache, IIS, or others on the market, and it also can be a proprietary software. The web server software must be able to handle web protocols such as HTTP, which is a protocol built on the top of the TCP protocol. Therefore, the structured information for the web can be transmitted to web browser through communication link if web browser and web server are located on different systems, or through inter-process communication if both web browser and web server are located on the same system.
A user session of a CCDSVM is normally started at a time the user log on to the CCDSVM from a web-browser and ended at a time when the user logout the CCDSVM from the same web browses. During a session, each user can perform tasks, which have been permitted by the credentials and permissions setup in user's security profile.
in the drawing, like elements are designated by like reference numbers.